Vincent Carroll’s column outlining The Denver Post’s policy on publishing letters “skeptical that humans are causing climate change” is reasonable, if not responsible. Climate-change science with its innumerable, ever-changing variables lacks the precision of which most other science is capable.

That readers choose to ignore the proven and observable truth is fascinating, like a train wreck, psychologically interesting; and like any fiction, frequently creative.

Please don’t claim that the “arbiters of truth” or just “truth” ends debate, which it clearly doesn’t; just give truth its due. When the diminishing biosphere and the end of life on Earth as we know it are the subject, it is a debate unlike any other on the pages of your newspaper. It involves some journalistic responsibility. I believe the Los Angeles Times can be proud of its stance to not print, in most cases, climate-change deniers’ letters.

Barb Coddington, Glenwood Springs

This letter was published in the Oct. 27 edition.

Vincent Carroll’s column on censorship of “warming skeptics” by the Los Angeles Times was an excellent synopsis of the problem.

Wikipedia defines science as “knowledge of testable explanations and predictions.” The International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) has not a single climate model that predicted the current 16-year hiatus of warming. The warming theory is totally based on computer models.

In addition to a hiatus in warming, we are seeing the largest ice area in the Antarctic since satellite measurements started, and the Arctic ice cap is currently increasing at a very rapid rate.

The Soviet Union suppressed scientific openness, and suffered the consequences. Let’s hope that we do not follow suit.

William Yurth, Boulder

This letter was published in the Oct. 27 edition.

Even the most lenient opinion page would be unlikely to print a letter on a medical topic from an advocate of the medieval theory of “humours,” and media outlets don’t feel obliged to allot space to arguments for such regressive or unscientific viewpoints as geocentric cosmology, a flat Earth, or the moral acceptability of slavery.

It’s in this context the the Los Angeles Times’ recent decision to reject letters denying the reality of anthropogenic global warming must be understood. While climatologists disagree about particular climate-forcing mechanisms or the relative severity of specific effects, there’s no longer any scientific argument about the human causes of climate change. Outlying views will always exist, but this is no reason to treat single dissenters as worthy of equivalent airtime or column inches — especially since, in media handling of climate issues, these contrarian opinions invariably come from the same individuals.

Warren Senders, Medford, Mass.

This letter was published in the Oct. 27 edition.

Vincent Carroll apparently believes that something accepted by 95 percent of the world’s legitimate climate scientists is not only still unsettled science, but writes that climate skeptics believe that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “has demonstrated consistent bias in favor of alarmist interpretations.” He believes the IPCC’s findings should be balanced with the blogs of a debunked outlying climatologist, or the opinions of conservative mouthpiece Charles Krauthammer.

This speaks more to the problems of mainstream journalism than to those of the Los Angeles Times, which has decided to no longer promote climate change denial. Blind adherence to balance and presenting the “back and forth” not only provides cover to those seeking to propagate a delusional position for economic gain, but it creates the kind of false equivalencies that have resulted in a confused and muddled electorate.

The Los Angeles Times is to be commended for placing accurate reporting above pandering.

Harv Teitelbaum, Evergreen

This letter was published in the Oct. 27 edition.

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Guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 150 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address, day and evening phone numbers, and may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.

To reach the Denver Post editorial page by phone: 303-954-1331

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